BRANY and ViS Research Partnership to Streamline Feasibility Assessment for Clinical Trials

NEW YORK, June 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Two major players in the field of clinical research trial support services will work together to bring efficiency to the clinical trial process.

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Clinical trials are necessary for the development of new medical therapies, but they have become prohibitively expensive and slow. Such trials can be badly delayed because sponsors struggle to understand the capabilities of trial centers. The agreement addresses this issue, as it couples two efficient systems to gather and process information needed for research center evaluation and study start-up.

The Biomedical Research Alliance of New York (BRANY) is one of the largest networks of clinical research sites in the US. BRANY has implemented an efficient 60 day system (SMART-Start-60) for the start-up of clinical trials at academic medical centers. Their new partner, ViS Research, offers a pioneering online research feasibility platform, which eliminates the need for the cumbersome feasibility questionnaires. The collaboration will help medical researchers by reducing their administrative burden related to these feasibility questionnaires, while providing faster and easier start-up of the clinical trials.

Kimberley Irvine, EVP of Operations for BRANY said: "BRANY has built a reputation of excellence and study start-up efficiency among institutions as well as CROs and Sponsors. Our partnership with ViS Research will enhance our ability to offer BRANY certified research sites innovative technology-based solutions to improve efficiencies in the site selection process."

"BRANY and its affiliate sites are very well regarded and we are honored to collaborate with them," said ViS CEO Fabio Thiers MD PhD.  "Our platform highlights site strengths and delivers simpler data sharing. Together, we can reduce costs and greatly improve communications with trial planners and sponsors."

To find the right centers, trial planners send out numerous feasibility questionnaires that are often never filled out or returned. These questionnaires are still necessary because the trial planners do not have all the necessary information about sites, investigators and locations where they operate, and when they plan the trial, information available is often inaccurate, outdated, or simply non-existent.  

This partnership agreement offers a much more efficient and modern model for research site selection. ViS Research's online feasibility platform delivers the capabilities of research sites, investigators and locations where they operate. BRANY will leverage the live analytics provided by ViS Research to provide even faster and more efficient site start-up. The end result will be faster access to medical therapies for the patients who need them.

About BRANY
The Biomedical Research Alliance of New York (BRANY) is a national organization founded in 1998 by NSLIJ, Montefiore Medical Center, NYU School of Medicine and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, providing support services to sponsors and investigators involved in research in a wide variety of therapeutic areas, medical devices, biologic, and diagnostic trials.  Staffed by multi-disciplinary experts, with a robust network of more than 200 academic based investigators, BRANY is able to offer its partners a turnkey solution for expedited site identification and 60 day study start-up. More information at www.brany.com.

About ViS Research
ViS Research offers an analytics platform for research site feasibility assessment. It enables the more than 400,000 disease-specific research sites and investigators worldwide to efficiently display their capabilities, while providing multi-dimensional analytics about the locations where the sites operate. All the analytics are made easily accessible through interactive visualizations and user-friendly search tools, which answer trial planning questions at a small fraction of the time spent and cost incurred through conventional methods. The ViS Research Institute was created as a global enterprise in 2010. Its interdisciplinary team interconnects traditional and emerging markets through regional hubs in New York City, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, and Frankfurt am Main. More information at www.visresearch.com.

SOURCE ViS Research